Due Diligence checklist

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This check list is just to give you some ideas of what kind of things you should be looking at when you are doing the due diligence on a practice you are considering purchasing and what kind of document a seller should be prepared to provide.  I’m not saying that you absolutely have to get everything on the list and I’m not saying you don’t need more documents than are on the list. Always use common sense and dig further into items that may not make sense.

 

I am saying you shouldn’t skip steps.  You do need to due diligence.  It shouldn’t take months or even weeks.  If you have what you need, a weekend is more than enough if you are doing it yourself and it shouldn’t take more than a day or two if you hired a professional who knows what they are doing. 

 

The more expensive the practice is, the more I would expect you to look at – and the more organized I would expect the seller to be.  But you don’t want to make a mistake at any price, so take time to look through things carefully.  

 

That said, wasting time getting old information just isn’t at all useful to you, and can annoy sellers. Do you really need to know what happened 5 or 10 years ago? Why?  It just isn’t relevant.   3 years plus the current year is usually the most that is relevant, and I always think buyers should concentrate on the current year and the last full calendar year because that’s what’s happening now. 

 

Bottom line, I hope this list helps!